by Tom Shepherd
“Friend Tyler,” Mr. Blue said, “according to the Tadpole’s geo-scanner, the planet burns along fault lines.”
“Honey, why aren’t we seeing magna, or smoke plumes from volcanism?” Lovey Frost asked.
“Perhaps the lava seeps, then sleeps,” Mr. Blue said.
Arrupt burped, then two ribbits. “Yes-no. Seeps, yes. Lava no. Not fire stuff. Hot poison stuff. Kill plants black, sometimes burn little bit, go out quick-quick. Very bad smell.”
“Superheated toxic gases,” Tyler said. “Wonder why they’re limited to the dark zones?”
“Prevailing winds,” Suzie suggested. “Dispersion thins the toxicity. But I’m more concerned about the composition of the atmosphere.”
“Composition?”
“Nitrogen-neon-oxygen. Barely enough O2 to support carbon-based air-breathers. Sea level will feel like you’re climbing ruddy Everest.”
“Which explains why the fires die quick-quick,” Tyler said. “Mr. Arrupt, how do we breathe down there?”
“When land, they give nose-hose to humanoid visit. Little breath maker, help okay.”
“What else haven’t you told us about the Pirate capital?” Tyler said.
“They calla Cidade Portuária Real,” Kilub Riff said with a surprisingly good Portuguese accent. “Smack center big green jungle. Way far black dead places.”
“Named after Port Royal, Jamaica,” Suzie said. “Arguably the pirate capital of Terra in the seventeenth century. Called ‘the most wicked and sinful city in the world.’ Earned the bloody rep.”
Arrupt grunted and barked. “Port Royal very old city. Maybe twenty, thirty thousand Terran year. Pirate no build. Steal from Groxbitz.”
“There’s an indigenous population?” Suzie said.
Arrupt croaked. “They round chubby, calla self Groxbitz. Breathe good here. Short like Kozie, but no head, no fur. Many, many, arm-leg. Roll not walk. Build cities from wet mud, sun bake. No got energy weapon, no fly FTL. No smart like Dengathi, but no dumb like Dirt Monkey.”
Tyler chuckled. “Touché, Kilub Riff.”
“Pirate bad to Groxbitz. Make many slave. Kill many for food, sport. Frog no understand kill for sport. Big evil, pirate or nobody else.”
“How many natives are left?” Suzie said.
Arrupt bobbed his head. “Millions an’ millions. Got mud cities all places no dead trees. Green jungle, many grassland, many wetland.”
“So, the Free Enterprise League ‘discovered’ this place populated by ‘inferiors’ and established a colony,” Suzie said. “Sounds disturbingly familiar to a Briton.”
“Groxbitz strong little guys, breathe good here, so Pirate make work. Dig tunnel, patch house. Grow food. Be food, too. No can live in Pirate city. Go home dark time. Sometime pirate go Groxbitz cities, kill everybodys. Keep enough alive to eat an’ work.”
“Cannibalistic slavery, apartheid, and genocide,” Tyler muttered. “Maybe if they had energy weapons—”
“Fancy a First Law violation? Bugger the consequences, let’s break the oldest taboo in the known galaxy.”
“Liberty or death.”
Suzie’s blue eyes snatched him from rampaging off course. “Ty, you’re here to save a pirate.”
“Don’t remind me.” He checked the flight plan. “Thanks for the briefing, Phibby. All hands, down in five.”
* * * *
The Howling Tadpole touched down at the Port Royal’s junkyard spaceport and taxied from hardtop runway to a subdivision of recently cleared mud slabs. Taxiways and parking spaces were paved with perforated steel plate, the oldest quick-fix surfaces for temporary landing fields.
Tyler smirked. “Remind you of anyplace?”
“Sedalia-3, Safe Harbor Spaceport without the desert.”
“Yeah. Jungle shithole option,” Tyler said.
“Bugger that. No Trumping the natives.”
They glided past a menagerie starcraft parked along the lane of P.S.P. slots. Vessels carried identifying marks of assorted star nations and private organizations, and most showed signs of battle damage. The dark flower emblem of Hideki Tsuchiya’s Sakura House showed up frequently.
Tyler eased the Tadpole into her assigned parking slot between a badly scorched, undesignated mining barge and a damage-free, medium-size Mindorian cargo hauler. Nothing truly gigantic rested here, like the CC Wollongong, which could have swallowed all the ships along the lane and called it a snack.
After standard bio-scrubbing of the hull—this time by a team of multi-armed creatures that looked like round, rubbery watermelons—Tyler gathered his shore party at the cargo bay airlock for disembarkation checks. Mr. Blue had slipped into his best travel tunic and carried an overstuffed backpack, into which Tyler assumed the omnivorous Quirt-Thymean had crammed abundant emergency rations.
Zenna’s First Wife, Yumiko Matsuda, had slipped into a white kimono and carried a mesh handbag on a strap over her shoulder. Inside the bag rested a short, thin cylinder. Her collapsed katana sword, available at the flick of a wrist.
Everyone else—Lovey Frost, Demarcus Platte, Dr. Julieta Solorio, Suzie and Tyler—stayed with the dark green jumpsuits instead of Matthews Corp standard yellow, hoping to evade trigger-happy refugees from M-double-I’s bashing of the pirate armada at Jump Gate Alpha.
Except for Mr. Arrupt. He proudly dressed in the green-spotted vest and khaki waist band of the Dengathi Naval Service, from which he had been dishonorably discharged. Tyler smiled when he saw it. A little sadly.
With the shore team organized, he ordered Paco and Dorla Léon to stay aboard, arm themselves, and safeguard the ship and cargo from opportunistic thieves. Tyler asked Paco to issue all shore party members a kinetic blaster. It was a pirate base, after all.
Yumiko Matsuda politely declined, as Tyler knew she would. Officer Matsuda opened her tote bag, withdrew a sword hilt, and snapped her wrist. A full-sized katana with scabbard and harness deployed instantly; she slipped the harness over a shoulder and centered the weapon across her back.
“Julieta, are we clear to disembark in this biosphere?” Tyler said as Paco Léon distributed sidearms and ankle holsters to team members.
“I don’t know. The pathogenetic profile of this planet is unrecorded, so I double-dosed everyone with UBK and jacked up your immune systems. We’ll need daily decon showers, too.”
“No find in city,” Arrupt croaked. “Pirate shower on pirate ship. Sleep, too. Bad air. No good sleep-time”
“So, we return to the Tadpole at night,” Suzie said.
“Don’t wait for decon if you begin to feel sick. Too hot, too cold, anything—find me. If whatever you get hasn’t already killed me, I might be able to help.”
“Did we get our delivery of breathing-assist apparatus?” Tyler said.
“Waiting for us, foot of the ramp,” Julieta reported. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll pass out from hypoxia in a few minutes.”
“And with that encouraging medical bulletin, let’s go save a bad guy.”
Fourteen
The Howling Tadpole’s exit ramp lowered quickly to the P.S.P. where squatty-body Groxbitz blubbered incoherently and tossed a sealed plastic pouch to each crew member. Tyler opened his bag and withdrew a simple nasal cannula attached by thin, transparent tubing to a portable oxygen concentrator about the size of a sandwich. The concentrators adhered to any surface and could be repositioned without losing stickability.
Acclimating to O2-dispensing plastic prongs in the nose was more difficult than Tyler imagined. The little nozzles smelled like new circuitry, or deodorant soap with a hint of vinegar. And the concentrator stubbornly insisted users take a regulated breath to dispense its oxygen boost, so when he stopped breathing at the prescribed cadence, it detected Tyler’s deviation and forced a puff of air into his nasal passages. He complained loudly to the doctor, who showed no sympathy.
“It’s keeping you alive, Primo. The device is training you to breathe regularly. Aversive conditioning.”
�
��Why doesn’t Phibby need one?”
“Mr. Arrupt is quite comfortable with Himalayan O2 levels. Amphibians in general tolerate high altitudes better than most species. Live longer up there and reproduce more frequently, in fact.”
Tyler frowned and made a ribbit-croak sound. “I’ll try it in my next incarnation.”
“You no ‘posed to believe in borns-again,” Arrupt chided. “Matt Junior good Catholic, like Kilub Riff.”
In relatively short while, they were ambling across the low oxygen planet’s surface toward a pick-up point like gorillas in a rain forest. At least that’s what their Dengathi navigator called the Terrans.
After a quick, bumpy ride on a six-wheel transport driven by a multi-legged Groxbitz chauffeur, the Star Lawyers shore party climbed from the vehicle beside a mud brick wall. Not a true city wall, just a wall to fence in a large compound, Tyler guessed. The masonry was light brown and smooth, and the compound marked the place where stark, dilapidated starport became green foliage and ramshackle city. Stone streets, worn smooth by time and traffic, led from the edifice to the city proper.
“Port Royal,” Suzie said. “Looks like bloody Timbuktu.”
A dark-haired human male in a yellow jumpsuit awaited them at the only visible entrance, a massive, iron-studded wood gate. Tall and slender, but shorter than Tyler, the greeter had a black handlebar moustache and his eyes flashed warmly to accompany a wide, toothy smile. He didn’t wear a cannula and showed no signs of shortness of breath. A metal suitcase rested by his feet.
Although the man appeared to be unarmed, Tyler placed a hand on his holstered blaster and Yumiko reached over her shoulder to grasp the sword hilt. Julieta shot a “We’ve got this” glance at Tyler.
“Welcome, Star Lawyers!” the unarmed doorman cried. “Please relax your grip, Officer Matsuda. You cannot hurt me with a blade, no matter how keenly honed.” He touched a bracer pad on his forearm and changed clothes to dark green like theirs.
“Well, isn’t this the bee’s knees?” Suzie said. “This chap is a hologram.”
“Why did they send you to meet us?” Tyler said.
“My name is André Mercier, counselor at law and Chief Public Defender. I am your guide.”
“Is that the Pirate Courthouse?”
“Monsieur, forgive me. The morning will warm soon, and you will suffer discomfort in the heat due to oxygen deprivation. The courtyard beyond this gate is quite lovely. Shall we go inside and sit under the cool trees to talk?”
Tyler shaded his eyes. “I asked you a question. Is that the Pirate courthouse?”
“It is where I am instructed to bring you.”
Tyler studied the treetops which rose from the enclosure. Some wore a coat of pink and white flowers. The lack of foot traffic in and out of the compound raised red flags. He didn’t like the idea of following an unknown entity into a confined space, but they’d come here to get a pirate acquitted, and the courtroom might await beyond that wall.
He nodded. “Lead on, O King Eternal.”
André laughed. “Oh, no, no, no! The French monarchy ended badly.”
“Fella, you’re a hologram.”
“A French hologram.” He waved a hand, a courtly gesture. “Come.”
“Yumiko, draw your blade.” Tyler followed Mercier through the iron-studded door, the shore party behind him.
Past the unimpressive mud brick barrier they entered a courtyard with flowering fruit trees and flowing water features. Under a leafy shade screen, someone had arranged seven blue metallic chairs, one per member of the shore party. Tyler halted the parade before reaching the shadowed rest area. Exactly seven chairs—lucky guess?
“No,” he said.
Mercier turned to him. The French hologram’s eyes darted to the nearest building. “Monsieur Matthews, is something amiss? I merely want to brief your team on—”
“Brief us now.”
“But you would be more comfortable over there.”
“Where are the attorneys, families of defendants, clerks, spectators? This place is empty.”
“It is early. The court will not convene until—”
“Shut up, Monsieur. Suzie, scan for traps.”
She closed her eyes. When her lips formed a train of Neo-British profanity, Tyler knew she was into the local computer and his guess had been correct.
“Bloody hell.”
The shore party drew weapons. Julieta scanned the buildings with a datacom while pointing her kinetic blaster with the other hand.
“I assure you, my friend, there is no danger.”
“May I shut him down, luv?”
“Fuck, yes.”
Mercier laughed with the tone of an irritated maitre d' responding to foreigners who ask for ketchup.
“You cannot shut me—” And he vanished, leaving the metal suitcase.
“Yumiko, check that for explosives. Julieta, where are the bad guys?”
She pointed at the building where Mercier’s eyes had gone. “Four hostiles. Three Dengathi and a human. No windows facing this way. We’re probably on scanners.”
“Why haven’t they attacked?” he said.
Yumiko finished her inspection of the suitcase. “Nothing but computer and holo-projector, Tyler-san.” She placed it beside a large shrub.
“We’re now LFA,” Tyler said. They all knew what he acronym meant. Lethal Force Authorized. “Mr. Blue, circle around back. Cut off their escape route.”
Julieta and Yumiko stood together, weapons ready. “Primo, let us go first. You’re backup.”
He nodded. “On my order.”
Mr. Arrupt waved his blaster. “Kilub Riff good in fight.”
“Can’t spare you, Phibby. Climb a tree, watch for bad guys.”
“Matt Junior—”
“Treetop, now!”
He holstered the weapon. “Better job for Monkey.” The Frog bounded across the square, scampered up a tree, and disappeared into the green canopy.
“Everybody, check your cannulas. Suzie, guard the door. Lt. Frost, we’re the second wave.” Tyler gave the attack hand signal. “Go!”
They rushed the building and Julieta blasted the door to splinters. Yumiko entered, blade high, with the JPT dispatcher a step behind her. Blaster fire and steel-on-steel rang from within.
Tyler said, “Let’s go, Lieutenant Frost. ”
She adjusted her O2 dispenser. “Yes, sir.”
The battle in the outer room ended before Tyler and Lovey rushed the entrance. Three Dengathi lay dead on the hardwood floor from kinetic blaster shots to the head. A man in gray kimono nursed a bleeding cut to his sword arm; the katana lay across the room. Julieta tried to staunch the blood loss, but he cursed her in Japanese and came up with a dagger. Yumiko smashed him across the jaw with the heel of her hand and his head struck the floor.
“He is sedated now,” Yumiko said.
“I might make you a surgical nurse.” Julieta snapped a rolled up medical kit from her jumpsuit pocket and applied a self-adherent pressure bandage. “First aid only. I’d let the asshole bleed out, but Hippocrates wouldn’t approve.”
Tyler and Lovey checked the corridor leading to rooms within the complex and found them empty. He stuck his head out the rear door and summoned Prince Zenna from his post. The three cleared the rest of the single floor building of potential threats, then returned to the battle scene.
Tyler checked computers and control panels along the windowless walls facing the courtyard. Just as he suspected, one of the devices was a targeting computer with monitors focused on the cluster of blue chairs. He called for Suzie.
“Take a look.”
“Right.” She disappeared into the local network and resurfaced almost instantly. “God, it’s tight in there! I couldn’t get my whole program installed.”
“Find anything?”
“Bloody death trap. The blighters launched ten drones. Low-level holding pattern east of town. They were waiting for us to sit in those chairs, which are in fact stun weap
ons. We’d be unconscious and never know what his us.”
“Good plan, except they’d die in the bombardment, too.”
“Friend Tyler,” Mr. Blue said, “I located four hovercycles parked behind this compound. They had an escape strategy.”
“So, this isn’t the Pirate Courthouse?” Tyler said dryly. “I’m crushed.”
“More bad news,” Suzie said. “The drones are Parvian.”
“Very strange, Tyler-san,” Yumiko said. “Parvians are friends of your father, neh?”
“False flag mission,” Tyler said. “Death trap and political move.”
Suzie nodded. “Kill us with stolen weapons, ship our remains and forensic evidence back to your father, provoke conflict between the Commonwealth and the Parvian Republic.”
“And who gains if that friendship ends?” Julieta said cynically.
“Biggest pirate of them all, Hideki Tsuchiya,” Tyler said. “We cleared the building. Anybody else in the compound?”
Suzie shook her head. “The computers were installed recently, but this place has been abandoned for years.”
He ripped the cannulas from his nose and wiped dripping mucous on his sleeve. “I hate this fucking thing.”
“Keeps you alive, Primo.” Julieta handed him a sterilizer cloth. “Nose and fingers.”
“Suzie, can you control the drones?” He sanitized and returned the O2 line. The cloth dissipated into water mist.
“Sure, but I’m not squeezing into that cyber-box again,” Suzie said. “I’ll do it remotely.”
“Outstanding. Send those stolen Parve drones to altitude and hard crash them in a poison zone. Far away as possible.”
“Bloody marvelous.”
Tyler went to the tall tree and called to Mr. Arrupt.
The gray-green Dengathi had perched on a limb that Tyler would have bet he could not mount without splattering on the stone courtyard. When Arrupt saw him, he twittered and asked if he could come down now, please.
“No tree Frog, pond Frog. Up here very scare me.”
“You’re doing great work, Phibby.” Tyler leaned against the trunk to stare into the flickering light above. “Can you see the town?”